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MOSS: Backup and restore and missing Timer job definitions

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If you have your SharePoint application running on Server1 and you decide to move it to Server2 with backup and restore... you'll (may) end up having application at the Server2 that doesn't have all the necessary timer job definitions. There is however way to get those timer job definitions back but it's not the most elegant way :-)

So you have restored your system (for example "stsadm -o restore -url https://demo1:1000/ -filename Backup.dat") to Server2 and you'll go to Central Administration to see all the timer job definitions of your application:

It looks like everything is fine... but if you compare this list to another application:

So quite easily you can spot that this list is a lot longer for the another application (14 vs. 19)! If you compare them by each entry then you'll notice that your application is missing:

...
Scheduled Approval SharePoint - 80 Minutes
Scheduled Page Review SharePoint - 80 Daily
Scheduled Unpublish SharePoint - 80 Minutes 
...
Variations Propagate Page Job Definition SharePoint - 80 Minutes
Variations Propagate Site Job Definition SharePoint - 80 Minutes 
...

That means that if you want to use Scheduled publishing you won't be able to do so :-( And you would have problems with Variations too.

But let's try and see what actually happens Scheduled publishing. I created page that should be published at 1:00 PM:

After a while error message comes to the toolbar (it comes few minutes after it should be published):

So "An error occurred trying to publish this page on the set schedule. Republish the page with a new date or view the log if the problem continues. " will be you destiny... and page won't be published. But this was expected since we're missing timer job for that.

In order to fix this you need to actually create site collection to your application that will create those timer job definitions (ex. Publishing Portal or Collaboration Portal). NOTE: You really need to use one of those templates that will create those timer jobs. If you use ex. Blank Site you won't have those timer job definitions that you're looking for. After you have created the new site collection you can go and verify that it has created those 5 timer jobs. After this you can go and delete the newly created site collection and restore your own system back to the application.

Reason for this seems to be that restore just creates those 14 timer job definitions and doens't restore the ones that are build on top of the base WSS. So in order to get those back you need to do this small trick that I have just described in this post.

To summarize... if you want to transfer your system you need to follow couple of extra steps:

  1. Create new web application
  2. Create new site collection to your application
    • Use Publishing Portal or Collaboration Portal templates!
  3. Verify that you have all the necessary timer jobs
  4. Delete your newly created site collection
  5. Restore your own system

I hope I made someones life a bit easier with this post. I don't think that this is the first thing that comes to your mind when you're WCM page gives you error message when it should be published :-) 

Anyways... Happy hacking!

J

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2007
    Hi! I just wanted to add... probably something that is quite obvious. You can add new site collection under your web application and fix missing timer jobs with that too. It was so obvious that I missed that one in the post :-) J

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2007
    Thank you!!!!

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2008
    Hi, I did the new site collection under my existing web application that is missing the timer jobs and this did not work - maybe an iis reset?  I am not sure.

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2008
    Hi Casey! What template did you use? Since I have heard from numerous location where this was succesful fix... so I think that you have accidently used template that doesn't have those specific timer jobs. Anyways... Happy hacking! J

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2008
    I think I used Team Site, which is incorrect, so I went back and created another one using the Collaboration Portal.  This did not work either.  I think you need to create a web application to get these jobs out here, I am not sure creating a site collection does the trick.

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2008
    I managed to get the missing timer jobs back by deactivating then activating the Office SharPoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature under Site Settings > Site Collection Features

  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2008
    Yes, the missing timer jobs you are referring to are associated to the Publishing Portal. So by activating the OSS Publishing Infrastructure feature as niallyh explains then you should see those timer jobs.

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2008
    I tried deactivating and reactivating the "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature" and that did not bring back my timer job.,   Specifically I am missing Usage Analysis.  

  • Anonymous
    December 30, 2008
    deactivating then activating the Office SharPoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature works. I have done it with my restored site which was built by using variation.

  • Anonymous
    February 19, 2009
    You can also avoid this error by using content deployment rather than backup/restore for moving contents from one environment to other. It will also create all necessary timer jobs for you. You can also achieve this using stsadm command as well

  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2009
    DUDE!!!!! I've been looking for this answer for 2 friggin' weeks now, you RULE!!!

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2009
    I got my timer jon but still i get error->An error occurred trying to publish this page on the set schedule. Republish the page with a new date or view the log if the problem continues